Chapter XV: Book III: Psalms Lxxiii.-Lxxxix (4)

In ver. 13 the Divine Voice turns to address the joyous crowd of festal worshippers, exhorting them to that obedience which is the true keeping of the feast, and holding forth bright promises of the temporal blessings which, in accordance with the fundamental conditions of Israel's prosperity, should follow thereon. The sad picture of ancient rebellion just drawn influences the language in this verse, in which "My people," "hearken," and "walk" recur. The antithesis to walking in one's own counsels is walking in God's ways, suppressing native stubbornness, and becoming docile to His guidance. The highest blessedness of man is to have a will submissive to God's will, and to carry out that submission in all details of life. Self-engineered paths are always hard, and, if pursued to the end, lead into the dark. The listening heart will not lack guidance, and obedient feet will find God's way the way of peace which steadily climbs to unfading light.

The blessings attached in the psalm to such conformity with God's will are of an external kind, as was to be expected at the Old Testament stage of revelation. They are mainly two--victory and abundance. But the precise application of ver. 15 _b_ is doubtful. Whose "time" is to "endure for ever"? There is much to be said in favour of the translation "that so their time might endure for ever," as Cheyne renders, and for understanding it, as he does, as referring to the enemies who yield themselves to God, in order that they "might be a never-exhausted people." But to bring in the purpose of the enemies submission is somewhat irrelevant, and the clause is probably best taken to promise length of days to Israel. In ver. 16 the sudden change of persons in a is singular, and, according to the existing vocalisation, there is an equally sudden change of tenses, which induces Delitzsch and others to take the verse as recurring to historical retrospect. The change to the third person is probably occasioned, as Hupfeld suggests, by the preceding naming of Jehovah, or may have been due to an error. Such sudden changes are more admissible in Hebrew than with us, and are very easily accounted for, when God is represented as speaking. The momentary emergence of the psalmist's personality would lead him to say "He," and the renewed sense of being but the echo of the Divine Voice would lead to the recurrence to the "I," in which God speaks directly. The words are best taken as in line with the other hypothetical promises in the preceding verses. The whole verse looks back to Deut. xxxii. 13, 14. "Honey from the rock" is not a natural product; but, as Hupfeld says, the parallel "oil out of the flinty rock," which follows in Deuteronomy, shows that "we are here, not on the ground of the actual, but of the ideal," and that the expression is a hyperbole for incomparable abundance. Those who hearken to God's voice will have all desires satisfied and needs supplied. They will find furtherance in hindrances, fertility in barrenness; rocks will drop honey and stones will become bread.

PSALM LXXXII.

1 God stands in the congregation of God,
In the midst of the gods He judges.

2 How long win ye judge injustice,
And accept the persons of wicked men? Selah.
3 Right the weak and the orphan,
Vindicate the afflicted and the poor.
4 Rescue the weak and needy,
From the hand of the wicked deliver [them].

5 They know not, they understand not,
In darkness they walk to and fro,
All the foundations of the earth totter.
6 I myself have said, Ye are gods,
And sons of the Most High are ye all.
7 Surely like men shall ye die,
And like one of the princes shall ye fall.

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth,
For Thou, Thou shall inherit all the nations.

In Psalm 1. God is represented as gathering His people together to be judged; in this psalm He has garnered them together for His judgment on judges. The former psalm begins at an earlier point of the great Cause than this one does. In it, unnamed messengers go forth to summons the nation; in this, the first verse shows us the assembled congregation, the accused, and the Divine Judge standing in "the midst" in statuesque immobility. An awe-inspiring pause intervenes, and then the silence is broken by a mighty voice of reproof and admonition (vv. 2-4). The speaker may be the psalmist, but the grand image of God as judging loses much of its solemnity and appropriateness, unless these stern rebukes and the following verses till the end of ver. 7 are regarded as His voice of judgment. Ver. 5 follows these rebukes with "an indignant aside from the Judge" (Cheyne), evoked by obstinate deafness to His words; and vv. 6, 7, pronounce the fatal sentence on the accused, who are condemned by their own refusal to hearken to Divine remonstrances. Then, in ver. 8, after a pause like that which preceded God's voice, the psalmist, who has been a silent spectator, prays that what he has heard in the inward ear, and seen with the inward eye, may be done before the nations of the world, since it all belongs to Him by right.

The scene pictured in ver. 1 has been variously interpreted. "The congregation of God" is most naturally understood according to the parallel in Psalm l., and the familiar phrase "the congregation of Israel" as being the assembled nation. Its interpretation and that of the "gods" who are judged hang together. If the assembly is the nation, the persons at the bar can scarcely be other than those who have exercised injustice on the nation. If, on the other hand, the "gods" are ideal or real angelic beings, the assembly will necessarily be a heavenly one. The use of the expressions "The congregation of Jehovah" (Numb. xxvii. 17, xxxi. 16; Josh. xxii. 16, 17) and "Thy congregation" (Psalm lxxiv. 2) makes the former interpretation the more natural, and therefore exercises some influence in determining the meaning of the other disputed word. The interpretation of "gods" as angels is maintained by Hupfeld; and Bleek, followed by Cheyne, goes the fun length of regarding them as patron angels of the nations. But, as Baethgen says, "that angels should be punished with death is a thought which lies utterly beyond the Old Testament sphere of representation," and the incongruity can hardly be reckoned to be removed by Cheyne's remark, that, since angels are in other places represented as punished, "it is only a step further" to say that they are punished with death. If, however, these "gods" are earthly rulers, the question still remains whether they are Jewish or foreign judges? The latter opinion is adopted chiefly on the ground of the reference in ver. 8 to a world-embracing judicial act, which, however, by no means compels its acceptance, since it is entirely in accordance with the manner of psalmists to recognise in partial acts of Divine retribution the operation in miniature of the same Divine power, which will one day set right all wrongs, and, on occasion of the smaller manifestation of Divine righteousness, to pray for a universal judgment. There would be little propriety in summoning the national assembly to behold judgments wrought on foreign rulers, unless these alien oppressors were afflicting Israel, of which there is no sure indications in the psalm. The various expressions for the afflicted in vv. 3, 4, are taken, by the supporters of the view that the judges are foreigners, to mean the whole nation as it groaned under their oppression, but there is nothing to show that they do not rather refer to the helpless in Israel.

Our Lord's reference to ver. 6 in John x. 34-38 is, by the present writer, accepted as authoritatively settling both the meaning and the ground of the remarkable name of "gods" for human judges. It does not need that we should settle the mystery of His emptying Himself, or trace the limits of His human knowledge, in order to be sure that He spoke truth with authority, when He spoke on such a subject as His own Divine nature, and the analogies and contrasts between it and the highest human authorities. His whole argument is worthless, unless the "gods" in the psalm are men. He tells us why that august title is applied to them--namely, because to them "the word of God came." They were recipients of a Divine word, constituting them in their office; and, in so far as they discharged its duties, their decrees were God's word ministered by them. That is especially true in a theocratic state such as Israel, where the rulers are, in a direct way, God's vicegerents, clothed by Him with delegated authority, which they exercise under His control. But it is also true about all who are set in similar positions elsewhere. The office is sacred, whatever its holders are.

The contents of the psalm need little remark. In vv. 2-4 God speaks in stern upbraiding and command. The abrupt pealing forth of the Divine Voice, without any statement of who speaks, is extremely dramatic and impressive. The judgment hall is filled with a hushed crowd. No herald is needed to proclaim silence. Strained expectance sits on every ear. Then the silence is broken. These authoritative accents can come but from one speaker. The crimes rebuked are those to which rulers, in such a state of society as was in Israel, are especially prone, and such as must have been well-nigh universal at the time of the psalmist. They were no imaginary evils against which these sharp arrows were launched. These princes were like those gibbeted for ever in Isa. 1.--loving gifts and following after rewards, murderers rather than judges, and fitter to be "rulers of Sodom" than of God's city. They had prostituted their office by injustice, had favoured the rich and neglected the poor, had been deaf to the cry of the helpless, had steeled their hearts against the miseries of the afflicted, and left them to perish in the gripe of the wicked. Such is the indictment. Does it sound applicable to angels?

For a moment the Divine Voice pauses. Will its tones reach any consciences? No. There is no sign of contrition among the judges, who are thus solemnly being judged. Therefore God speaks again, as if wondering, grieved, and indignant "at the blindness of their hearts," as His Son was when His words met the same reception from the same class. Ver. 5 might almost be called a Divine lament over human impenitence, ere the Voice swells into the fatal sentence. One remembers Christ's tears, as He looked across the valley to the city glittering in the morning sun. His tears did not hinder His pronouncing its doom; nor did His pronouncing its doom hinder His tears. These judges were without knowledge. They walked in darkness, because they walked in selfishness, and never thought of God's judgment. Their gait was insolent, as the form of the word "walk to and fro" implies. And, since they who were set to be God's representatives on earth, and to show some gleam of His justice and compassion, were ministers of injustice and vicegerents of evil, fostering what they should have crushed, and crushing whom they should have fostered, the foundations of society were shaken, and, unless these were swept away, it would be dissolved into chaos. Therefore the sentence must fall, as it does in vv. 6, 7. The grant of dignity is withdrawn. They are stripped of their honours, as a soldier of his uniform before he is driven from his corps. The judge's robe, which they have smirched, is plucked off their shoulders, and they stand as common men.

PSALM LXXXIII.

1 O God, let there be no rest to Thee,
Be not dumb, and keep not still, O God.
2 For, behold, Thy enemies make a tumult,
And they who hate Thee lift up the head.
3 Against Thy people they make a crafty plot,
And consult together against Thy hidden ones.
4 They say, Come, and let us cut them off from [being] a nation,
And let the name of Israel be remembered no more.

5 For they consult together with one heart,
Against Thee they make a league:
6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagarenes,
7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia with the dwellers in Tyre;
8 Asshur also has joined himself to them,
They have become an arm to the children of Lot. Selah.

9 Do Thou to them as [to] Midian,
As [to] Sisera, [to] Jabin at the brook Kishon,
10 [Who] were destroyed at Endor,
[Who] became manure for the land.
11 Make them, their nobles, like Oreb and like Zeeb,
And like Zebah and like Zalmunnah all their princes,
12 Who say, Let us take for a possession to ourselves
The habitations of God.

13 My God, make them like a whirl of dust,
Like stubble before the wind,
14 Like fire [that] burns [the] forest,
And like flame [that] scorches [the] mountains.
15 So pursue them with Thy storm,
And with Thy tempest strike them with panic.
16 Fill their face with dishonour,
That they may seek Thy name, Jehovah.

17 Let them be ashamed and panic-struck for ever,
And let them be abashed and perish;
18 And let them know that Thou, [even] Thy name, Jehovah, alone
Art the Most High over all the earth.

This psalm is a cry for help against a world in arms. The failure of all attempts to point to a period when all the allies here represented as confederate against Israel were or could have been united in assailing it, inclines one to suppose that the enumeration of enemies is not history, but poetic idealisation. The psalm would then be, not the memorial of a fact, but the expression of the standing relation between Israel and the outlying heathendom. The singer masses together ancient and modern foes of diverse nationalities and mutual animosities, and pictures them as burying their enmities and bridging their separations, and all animated by one fell hatred to the Dove of God, which sits innocent and helpless in the midst of them. There are weighty objections to this view; but no other is free from difficulties even more considerable. There are two theories which divide the suffrages of commentators. The usual assignment of date is to the league against Jehoshaphat recorded in 2 Chron. xx. But it is hard to find that comparatively small local confederacy of three peoples in the wide-reaching alliance described in the psalm. Chronicles enumerates the members of the league as being the children of Moab and "the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites," which last unmeaning designation should be read, as in the LXX., "the Me'unim." and adds to these Edom (2 Chron. xx. 2, corrected text). Even if the contention of the advocates of this date for the psalm is admitted, and "the Me'unim" are taken to include the Arab tribes, whom the psalmist calls Ishmaelites and Hagarenes, there remains the fact that he names also Philistia, Amalek, Tyre, and Asshur, none of whom is concerned in the alliance against Jehoshaphat. It was, in fact, confined to eastern and south-eastern nations, with whom distant western tribes could have no common interest. Nor is the other view of the circumstances underlying the psalm free from difficulty. It advocates a Maccabean date. In 1 Macc. v. it is recorded that the nations round about were enraged at the restoration of the altar and dedication of the Temple after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes, and were ready to break out in hostility. Cheyne points to the occurrence in Maccabees of six of the ten names mentioned in the psalm. But of the four not mentioned, two are Amalek and Asshur, both of which had been blotted out of the roll of nations long before the Maccabees' era. "The mention of Amalek," says Cheyne, "is half-Haggadic, half-antiquarian." But what should Haggadic or antiquarian elements do in such a list? Asshur is explained on this hypothesis as meaning Syria, which is very doubtful, and, even if admitted, leaves unsolved the difficulty that the subordinate place occupied by the nation in question would not correspond to the importance of Syria in the time of the Maccabees. Of the two theories, the second is the more probable, but neither is satisfactory; and the view already stated, that the psalm does not refer to any actual alliance, seems to the present writer the most probable. The world is up in arms against God's people; and what weapon has Israel? Nothing but prayer.

The psalm naturally falls into two parts, separated by Selah, of which the first (vv. 1-8) describes Israel's extremity, and the second (vv. 9-18) is its supplication.

The psalmist begins with earnest invocation of God's help, beseeching Him to break His apparent inactivity and silence. "Let there be no rest to Thee" is like Isa. lxii. 6. God seems passive. It needs but His Voice to break the dreary silence, and the foes will be scattered. And there is strong reason for His intervention, for they are _His_ enemies, who riot and roar like the hoarse chafing of an angry sea, for so the word rendered "make a tumult" implies (Psalm xlvi. 3). It is "Thy people" who are the object of their crafty conspiracy, and it is implied that these are thus hated because they _are_ God's people. Israel's prerogative, which evokes the heathen's rage, is the ground of Israel's confidence and the plea urged to God by it. Are we not Thy "hidden ones"? And shall a hostile world be able to pluck us from our safe hiding-place in the hollow of Thy hand? The idea of preciousness, as well as that of protection, is included in the word. Men store their treasures in secret places; God hides His treasures in the "secret of His face," the "glorious privacy of light" inaccessible. How vain are the plotters' whisperings against such a people!

The conspiracy has for its aim nothing short of blotting out the national existence and the very name of Israel. It is therefore high-handed opposition to God's counsel, and the confederacy is against _Him_. The true antagonists are, not Israel and the world, but God and the world. Calmness, courage, and confidence spring in the heart with such thoughts. They who can feel that they are hid in God may look out, as from a safe islet on the wildest seas, and fear nothing. And all who will may hide in Him.

The enumeration of the confederates in vv. 6-8 groups together peoples who probably were never really united for any common end. Hatred is a very potent cement, and the most discordant elements may be fused together in the fire of a common animosity. What a motley assemblage is here! What could bring together in one company Ishmaelites and Tyrians, Moab and Asshur? The first seven names in the list of allies had their seats to the east and south-east of Palestine. Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Amalek were ancestral foes, the last of which had been destroyed in the time of Hezekiah (1 Chron. iv. 43). The mention of descendants of Ishmael and Hagar, nomad Arab tribes to the south and east, recalls their ancestors' expulsion from the patriarchal family. Gebal is probably the mountainous region to the south of the Dead Sea. Then the psalmist turns to the west, to Philistia, the ancient foe, and Tyre, "the two peoples of the Mediterranean coast, which also appear in Amos (ch. i.; _cf._ Joel iii.) as making common cause with the Edomites against Israel" (Delitzsch). Asshur brings up the rear--a strange post for it to occupy, to be reduced to be an auxiliary to the "children of Lot," _i.e._ Moab and Ammon. The ideal character of this muster-roll is supported by this singular inferiority of position, as well as by the composition of the allied force, and by the allusion to the shameful origin of the two leading peoples, which is the only reference to Lot besides the narrative in Genesis.

The confederacy is formidable, but the psalmist does not enumerate its members merely in order to emphasise Israel's danger. He is contrasting this miscellaneous conglomeration of many peoples with the Almighty One, against whom they are vainly banded. Faith can look without a tremor on serried battalions of enemies, knowing that one poor man, with God at his back, outnumbers them all. Let them come from east and west, south and north, and close round Israel; God alone is mightier than they. So, after a pause marked by Selah, in which there is time to let the thought of the multitudinous enemies sink into the soul, the psalm passes into prayer, which throbs with confident assurance and anticipatory triumph. The singer recalls ancient victories, and prays for their repetition. To him, as to every devout man, to-day's exigencies are as sure of Divine help as any yesterday's were, and what God has done is pledge and specimen of what He is doing and will do. The battle is left to be waged by Him alone. The psalmist does not seem to think of Israel's drawing sword, but rather that it should stand still and see God fighting for it. The victory of Gideon over Midian, to which Isaiah also refers as the very type of complete conquest (Isa. ix. 3), is named first, but thronging memories drive it out of the singer's mind for a moment, while he goes back to the other crushing defeat of Jabin and Sisera at the hands of Barak and Deborah (Judg. iv., v.). He adds a detail to the narrative in Judges, when he localises the defeat at Endor, which lies on the eastern edge of the great plain of Esdraelon. In ver. 11 he returns to his first example of defeat--the slaughter of Midian by Gideon. Oreb (raven) and Zeeb (wolf) were in command of the Midianites, and were killed by the Ephraimites in the retreat. Zebah and Zalmunnah were kings of Midian, and fell by Gideon's own hand (Judg. viii. 21). The psalmist bases his prayer for such a dread fate for the foes on their insolent purpose and sacrilegious purpose of making me dwellings (or, possibly, the pastures) of God their own property. Not because the land and its peaceful homes belonged to the suppliant and his nation, but because they were God's, does he thus pray. The enemies had drawn the sword; it was permissible to pray that they might fall by the sword, or by some Divine intervention, since such was the only way of defeating their God-insulting plans.

The psalm rises to high poetic fervour and imaginative beauty in the terrible petitions of vv. 13-16. The word rendered "whirling dust" in ver. 13 is somewhat doubtful. It literally means _a rolling thing_, but what particular thing of the sort is difficult to determine. The reference is perhaps to "spherical masses of dry weeds which course over the plains." Thomson ("Land and Book," 1870, p. 563) suggests the wild artichoke, which, when ripe, forms a globe of about a foot in diameter. "In autumn the branches become dry and as light as a feather, the parent stem breaks off at the ground, and the wind carries these vegetable globes whithersoever it pleaseth. At the proper season thousands of them come scudding over the plain, rolling, leaping, bounding." So understood, the clause would form a complete parallel with the next, which compares the fleeing foe to stubble, not, of course, rooted, but loose and whirled before the wind. The metaphor of ver. 14 is highly poetic, likening the flight of the foe to the swift rush of a forest fire, which licks up (for so the word rendered _scorches_ means) the woods on the hillsides, and leaves a bare, blackened space. Still more terrible is the petition in ver. 15, which asks that God Himself should chase the flying remnants, and beat them down, helpless and panic-stricken, with storm and hurricane, as He did the other confederacy of Canaanitish kings, when they fled down the pass of Beth-Horon, and "Jehovah cast down great stones on them from heaven" (Josh. x. 10, 11).

But there is a deeper desire in the psalmist's heart than the enemies' destruction. He wishes that they should be turned into God's friends, and he wishes for their chastisement as the means to that end. "That they may seek Thy face, Jehovah," is the sum of his aspirations, as it is the inmost meaning of God's punitive acts. The end of the judgment of the world, which is continually going on by means of the history of the world, is none other than what this psalmist contemplated as the end of the defeat of that confederacy of God's enemies--that rebels should seek His face, not in enforced submission, but with true desire to sun themselves in its light, and with heart-felt acknowledgment of His Name as supreme through all the earth. The thought of God as standing alone in His majestic omnipotence, while a world is vainly arrayed against Him, which we have traced in vv. 5-7, is prominent in the close of the psalm. The language of ver. 18 is somewhat broken, but its purport is plain, and its thought is all the more impressive for the irregularity of construction. God alone is the Most High. He is revealed to men by His Name. It stands alone, as He in His nature does. The highest good of men is to know that that sovereign Name is unique and high above all creatures, hostile or obedient. Such knowledge is God's aim in punishment and blessing. Its universal extension must be the deepest wish of all who have for themselves learned how strong a fortress against a world in arms that Name is; and their desires for the foes of God and themselves are not in harmony with God's heart, nor with this psalmist's song, unless they are, that His enemies may be led, by salutary defeat of their enterprises and experience of the weight of God's hand, to bow, in loving obedience, low before the Name which, whether they recognise the fact or not, is high above an the earth.

PSALM LXXXIV.

1 How lovely are Thy dwellings,
Jehovah of Hosts!
2 My soul longs, yea, even languishes, for the courts of Jehovah,
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
3 Yea, the sparrow has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself, where she lays her young,
Thine altars, Jehovah of Hosts.
My King and my God.
4 Blessed they that dwell in Thy house!
They will be still praising Thee, Selah.

5 Blessed the man whose strength is in Thee,
In whose heart are the ways!
6 [Who] passing through the valley of weeping make it a place of
fountains,
Yea, the early rain covers it with blessings.
7 They go from strength to strength,
Each appears before God in Zion.
8 Jehovah, God of Hosts, hear my prayer,
Give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

9 [Thou], our shield, behold, O God,
And look upon the face of Thine anointed.
10 For better is a day in Thy courts than a thousand,
Rather would I lie on the threshold in the house of my God,
Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For Jehovah God is sun and shield,
Grace and glory Jehovah gives,
No good does He deny to them that walk in integrity.
12 Jehovah of hosts,
Blessed the man that trusts in Thee!

The same longing for and delight in the sanctuary which found pathetic expression in Psalms xlii., xliii., inspire this psalm. Like these, it is ascribed in the superscription to the Korachites, whose office of door-keepers in the Temple seems alluded to in ver. 10. To infer, however, identity of authorship from similarity of tone is hazardous. The differences are as obvious as the resemblances. As Cheyne well says, "the notes of the singer of Psalms xlii., xliii., are here transposed into a different key. It is still 'Te saluto, te suspiro,' but no longer 'De longinquo te saluto' (to quote Hildebert)." The longings after God and the sanctuary, in the first part of the psalm, do not necessarily imply exile from the latter, for they may be felt when we are nearest to Him, and are, in fact, an element in that nearness. It is profitless to inquire what were the singer's circumstances. He expresses the perennial emotions of devout souls, and his words are as enduring and as universal as the aspirations which they so perfectly express. No doubt the psalm identifies enjoyment of God's presence with the worship of the visible sanctuary more closely than we have to do, but the true object of its longing is God, and so long as spirit is tied to body the most spiritual worship will be tied to form. The psalm may serve as a warning against premature attempts to dispense with outward aids to inward communion.

It is divided into three parts by the Selahs. The last verse of the first part prepares the way for the first of the second, by sounding the note of "Blessed they," etc., which is prolonged in ver. 5, The last verse of the second part (ver. 8) similarly prepares for the first of the third (ver. 9) by beginning the prayer which is prolonged there. In each part there is a verse pronouncing blessing on Jehovah's worshippers, and the variation in the designations of these gives the key to the progress of thought in the psalm. First comes the blessing on those who dwell in God's house (ver. 4), and that abiding is the theme of the first part. The description of those who are thus blessed is changed, in the second strophe, to "those in whose heart are the [pilgrim] ways," and the joys of the progress of the soul towards God are the theme of that strophe. Finally, for dwelling in and journeying towards the sanctuary is substituted the plain designation of "the man that trusts in Thee," which trust is the impulse to following after God and the condition of dwelling with Him; and its joys are the theme of the third part.

The man who thus interpreted his own psalm had no unworthy conception of the relation between outward nearness to the sanctuary, and inward communion with the God who dwelt there. The psalmist's yearning for the Temple was occasioned by his longing for God. It was God's presence there which gave it all its beauty. Because they were "Thy tabernacles," he felt them to be lovely and lovable, for the word implies both. The abrupt exclamation beginning the psalm is the breaking into speech of thought which had long increased itself in silence. The intensity of his desires is expressed very strikingly by two words, of which the former (_longs_) literally means _grows pale_, and the latter _fails_, or _is consumed_. His whole being, body and spirit, is one cry for the living God. The word rendered "cry out" is usually employed for the shrill cry of joy, and that meaning is by many retained here. But the cognate noun is not infrequently employed for any loud or high-pitched call, especially for fervent prayer (Psalm lxxxviii. 2), and it is better to suppose that this clause expresses emotion substantially parallel to that of the former one, than that it makes a contrast to it. "The living God" is an expression only found in Psalm xlii., and is one of the points of resemblance between it and this psalm. That Name is more than a contrast with the gods of the heathen. It lays bare the reason for the psalmist's longings. By communion with Him who possesses life in its fulness, and is its fountain for all that live, he will draw supplies of that "life whereof our veins are scant." Nothing short of a real, living Person can slake the immortal thirst of the soul, made after God's own life, and restless till it rests in Him. The surface current of this singer's desires ran towards the sanctuary; the depth of them set towards God; and, for the stage of revelation at which he stood, the deeper was best satisfied through the satisfaction of the more superficial. The one is modified by the progress of Christian enlightenment, but the other remains eternally the same. Alas that the longings of Christian souls for fellowship with God should be so tepid, as compared with the sacred passion of desire which has found imperishable utterance in these glowing and most sincere words!

Ver. 3 has been felt to present grammatical difficulties, which need not detain us here. The easiest explanation is that the happy, winged creatures who have found resting-places are contrasted by the psalmist with himself, seeking, homeless amid creation, for his haven of repose. We have to complete the somewhat fragmentary words with some supplement before "Thine altars," such as "So would I find," or the like. To suppose that he represents the swallows as actually nesting on the altar is impossible, and, if the latter clauses are taken to describe the places where the birds housed and bred, there is nothing to suggest the purpose for which the reference to them is introduced. If, on the other hand, the poet looks with a poet's eye on these lower creatures at rest in secure shelters, and longs to be like them, in his repose in the home which his deeper wants make necessary for him, a noble thought is expressed with adequate poetic beauty. "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air roosting-places, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." All creatures find environment suited to their need, and are at rest in it, man walks like a stranger on earth, and restlessly seeks for rest. Where but in God is it to be found? Who that seeks it in Him shall fail to find it? What their nests are to the swallows, God is to man. The solemnity of the direct address to God at the close of ver. 3 would be out of place if the altar were the dwelling of the birds, but is entirely natural if the psalmist is thinking of the Temple as the home of his spirit. By the accumulation of sacred and dear names, and by the lovingly reiterated "my," which claims personal relation to God, he deepens his conviction of the blessedness which would be his, were he in that abode of his heart, and lingeringly tells his riches, as a miser might delight to count his gold, piece by piece.

The first part closes with an exclamation which gathers into one all-expressive word the joy of communion with God. They who have it are "blessed," with something more sacred and lasting than happiness, with something deeper and more tranquil than joy, even with a calm delight, not altogether unlike the still, yet not stagnant, rest of supreme felicity which fills the life of the living and ever-blessed God. That thought is prolonged by the music.

The second strophe (vv. 5-8) is knit to the first, chain-wise, by taking up again the closing strain, "Blessed the man!" But it turns the blessedness in another direction. Not only are they blessed who have found their rest in God, but so also are they who are seeking it. The goal is sweet, but scarcely less sweet are the steps towards it. The fruition of God has delights beyond all that earth can give, but the desire after Him, too, has delights of its own. The experiences of the soul seeking God in His sanctuary are here cast into the image of pilgrim bands going up to the Temple. There may be local allusions in the details. The "ways" in ver. 5 are the pilgrims' paths to the sanctuary. Hupfeld calls the reading "ways" senseless, and would substitute "trust"; but such a change is unnecessary, and tasteless. The condensed expression is not too condensed to be intelligible, and beautifully describes the true pilgrim spirit. They who are touched with that desire which impels men to "seek a better country, that is an heavenly," and to take flight from Time's vanities to the bosom of God, have ever "the ways" in their hearts. They count the moments lost during which they linger, or are anywhere but on the road. Amid calls of lower duties and distractions of many sorts, their desires turn to the path to God. Like some nomads brought into city life, they are always longing to escape. The caged eagle sits on the highest point of his prison, and looks with filmed eye to the free heavens. Hearts that long for God have an irrepressible instinct stinging them to ever-new attainments. The consciousness of "not having already attained" is no pain, when the hope of attaining is strong. Rather, the very blessedness of life lies in the sense of present imperfection, the effort for completeness, and the assurance of reaching it.

Ver. 6 is highly imaginative and profoundly true. If a man has "the ways" in his heart, he will pass through "the valley of weeping," and turn it into a "place of fountains." His very tears will fill the wells. Sorrow borne as a help to pilgrimage changes into joy and refreshment. The remembrance of past grief nourishes the soul which is aspiring to God. God puts our tears into His bottle; we lose the benefit of them, and fail to discern their true intent, unless we gather them into a well, which may refresh us in many a weary hour thereafter. If we do, there will be another source of fertility, plentifully poured out upon our life's path. "The early rain covers it with blessings." Heaven-descended gifts will not be wanting, nor the smiling harvests which they quicken and mature. God meets the pilgrims' love and faith with gently falling influences, which bring forth rich fruit. Trials borne aright bring down fresh bestowments of power for fruitful service. Thus possessed of a charm which transforms grief, and recipients of strength from on high, the pilgrims are not tired by travel, as others are, but grow stronger day by day, and their progressive increase in vigour is a pledge that they will joyously reach their journey's end, and stand in the courts of the Lord's house. The seekers after God are superior to the law of decay. It may affect their physical powers, but they are borne up by an unfulfilled and certain hope, and reinvigorated by continual supplies from above; and therefore, though in their bodily frame they, like other men, faint and grow weary, they shall not utterly fail, but, waiting on Jehovah, "will renew their strength." The fabled fountain of perpetual youth rises at the foot of God's throne, and its waters flow to meet those who journey thither.

Such are the elements of the blessedness of those who seek God's presence; and with that great promise of certain finding of the good and the God whom they seek, the description and the strophe properly ends. But just as the first part prepared the way for the second, so the second does for the third, by breaking forth into prayer. No wonder that the thoughts which he has been dwelling on should move the singer to supplication that these blessednesses may be his. According to some, ver. 8 is the prayer of the pilgrim on arriving in the Temple, but it is best taken as the psalmist's own.

The final part begins with invocation. In ver. 9 "our shield" is in apposition to "God," not the object to "behold." It anticipates the designation of God in ver. 11. But why should the prayer for "Thine anointed" break in upon the current of thought? Are we to say that the psalmist "completes his work by some rhythmical but ill-connected verses" (Cheyne)? There is a satisfactory explanation of the apparently irrelevant petition, if we accept the view that the psalm, like its kindred Psalms xlii., xliii., was the work of a companion of David's in his flight. If so, the king's restoration would be the condition of satisfying the psalmist's longing for the sanctuary. Any other hypothesis as to his date and circumstances fails to supply a connecting link between the main subject of the psalm and this petition. The "For" at the beginning of ver. 10 favours such a view, since it gives the delights of the house of the Lord, and the psalmist's longing to share in them, as the reasons for his prayer that Jehovah would look upon the face of His anointed. In that verse he glides back to the proper theme of the psalm. Life is to be estimated, not according to its length, but according to the richness of its contents. Time is elastic. One crowded moment is better than a millennium of languid years. And nothing fills life so full or stretches the hours to hold so much of real living, as communion with God, which works, on those who have plunged into its depths, some assimilation to the timeless life of Him with whom "one day is as a thousand years." There may be a reference to the Korachites' function of door-keepers, in that touchingly beautiful choice of the psalmist's, rather to lie on the threshold of the Temple than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Whether there is or not, the sentiment breathes sweet humility, and deliberate choice. Just as the poet has declared that the briefest moment of communion is in his sight to be preferred to years of earthly delight, so he counts the humblest office in the sanctuary, and the lowest place there, if only it is within the doorway, as better than aught besides. The least degree of fellowship with God has delights superior to the greatest measure of worldly joys. And this man, knowing that, chose accordingly. How many of us know it, and yet cannot say with him, "Rather would I lie on the door-sill of the Temple than sit in the chief places of the world's feasts!"

Such a choice is the only rational one. It is the choice of supreme good, correspondent to man's deepest needs, and lasting as his being. Therefore the psalmist vindicates his preference, and encourages himself in it, by the thoughts in ver. 11, which he introduces with "For." Because God is what He is, and gives what He gives, it is the highest wisdom to take Him for our true good, and never to let Him go. He is "sun and shield." This is the only place in which He is directly called a sun, though the idea conveyed is common. He is "the master light of all our seeing," the fountain of warmth, illumination, and life. His beams are too bright for human eyes to gaze on, but their effluence is the joy of creation. They who look to Him "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." What folly to choose darkness rather than light, and, when that Sun is high in the heavens, ready to flood our hearts with its beams, to prefer to house ourselves in gloomy caverns of our own sad thoughts and evil doings! Another reason for the psalmist's choice is that God is a shield. (Compare ver. 9.) Who that knows the dangers and foes that cluster thick round every life can wisely refuse to shelter behind that ample and impenetrable buckler? It is madness to stand in the open field, with arrows whizzing invisible all round, when one step, one heartfelt desire, would place that sure defence between us and every peril. God being such, "grace and glory" will flow from Him to those who seek Him. These two are given simultaneously, not, as sometimes supposed, in succession, as though grace were the sum of gifts for earth, and glory the all-comprehending expression for the higher bestowments of heaven. The psalmist thinks that both are possessed here. _Grace_ is the sum of God's gifts, coming from His loving regard to His sinful and inferior creatures. _Glory_ is the reflection of His own lustrous perfection, which irradiates lives that are turned to Him, and makes them shine, as a poor piece of broken pottery will, when the sunlight falls on it. Since God is the sum of all good, to possess Him is to possess it all. The one gift unfolds into all things lovely and needful. It is the raw material, as it were, out of which can be shaped, according to transient and multiform needs, everything that can be desired or can bless a soul.

But high as is the psalmist's flight of mystic devotion, he does not soar so far as to lose sight of plain morality, as mystics have often been apt to do. It is the man who walks in his integrity who may hope to receive these blessings. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord"; and neither access to His house nor the blessings flowing from His presence can belong to him who is faithless to his own convictions of duty. The pilgrim paths are paths of righteousness. The psalmist's last word translates his metaphors of dwelling in and travelling towards the house of Jehovah into their simple meaning, "Blessed is the man that _trusteth_ in Thee." That trust both seeks and finds God. There has never been but one way to His presence, and that is the way of trust. "I am the way.... No man cometh to the Father but by Me." So coming, we shall find, and then shall seek more eagerly and find more fully, and thus shall possess at once the joys of fruition and of desires always satisfied, never satiated, but continually renewed.

PSALM LXXXV.

1 Thou hast become favourable, Jehovah, to Thy land,
Thou hast turned back the captivity of Jacob.
2 Thou hast taken away the iniquity of Thy people,
Thou hast covered all their sin.
3 Thou hast drawn in all Thy wrath,
Thou hast turned Thyself from the glow of Thine anger.

4 Turn us, O God of our salvation,
And cause Thine indignation towards us to cease.
5 For ever wilt Thou be angry with us?
Wilt Thou stretch out Thine anger to generation after generation?
6 Wilt Thou not revive us again,
That Thy people may rejoice in Thee?
7 Show us, Jehovah, Thy loving-kindness,
And give us Thy salvation.

8 I will hear what God, Jehovah, will speak,
For He will speak peace to His people and to His favoured [ones];
Only let them not turn again to folly.
9 Surely near to them who fear Him is His salvation,
That glory may dwell in our land.
10 Loving-kindness and Troth have met together,
Righteousness and Peace have kissed [each other],
11 Troth springs from the earth,
And Righteousness looks down from heaven.
12 Yea, Jehovah will give that which is good,
And our land will give her increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps a way.

The outstanding peculiarity of this psalm is its sudden transitions of feeling. Beginning with exuberant thanksgiving for restoration of the nation (vv. 1-3), it passes, without intermediate gradations, to complaints of God's continued wrath and entreaties for restoration (vv. 4-7), and then as suddenly rises to joyous assurance of inward and outward blessings. The condition of the exiles returned from Babylon best corresponds to such conflicting emotions. The book of Nehemiah supplies precisely such a background as fits the psalm. A part of the nation had returned indeed, but to a ruined city, a fallen Temple, and a mourning land, where they were surrounded by jealous and powerful enemies. Discouragement had laid hold on the feeble company; enthusiasm had ebbed away; the harsh realities of their enterprise had stripped off its imaginative charm; and the mass of the returned settlers had lost heart as well as devout faith. The psalm accurately reflects such a state of circumstances and feelings, and may, with some certitude, be assigned, as it is by most commentators, to the period of return from exile.

It falls into three parts, of increasing length,--the first, of three verses (vv. 1-3), recounts God's acts of mercy already received; the second, of four verses (vv. 4-7), is a plaintive prayer in view of still remaining national afflictions; and the third, of six verses, a glad report by the psalmist of the Divine promises which his waiting ear had heard, and which might well quicken the most faint-hearted into triumphant hope.

In the first strophe one great fact is presented in a threefold aspect, and traced wholly to Jehovah. "Thou hast turned back the captivity of Jacob." That expression is sometimes used in a figurative sense for any restoration of prosperity, but is here to be taken literally. Now, as at first, the restored Israel, like their ancestors under Joshua, had not won the land by their own arm, but "because God had a favour unto them," and had given them favour in the eyes of those who carried them captive. The restoration of the Jews, seen from the conqueror's point of view, was a piece of state policy, but from that of the devout Israelite was the result of God's working upon the heart of the new ruler of Babylon. The fact is stated in ver. 1; a yet more blessed fact, of which it is most blessed as being a token, is declared in ver. 2.

The psalmist knows that captivity had been chastisement, the issue of national sin. Therefore he is sure that restoration is the sign of forgiveness. His thoughts are running in the same line as in Isa. xl. 2, where the proclamation to Jerusalem that her iniquity is pardoned is connected with the assurance that her hard service is accomplished. He uses two significant words for pardon, both of which occur in Psalm xxxii. In ver. 2 _a_ sin is regarded as a weight pressing down the nation, which God's mercy lifts off and takes away; in ver. 2 _b_ it is conceived of as a hideous stain or foulness, which His mercy hides, so that it is no longer an offence to heaven. Ver. 3 ventures still deeper into the sacred recesses of the Divine nature, and traces the forgiveness, which in act had produced so happy a change in Israel's position, to its source in a change in God's disposition. "Thou hast drawn in all Thy wrath," as a man does his breath, or, if the comparison may be ventured, as some creature armed with a sting retracts it into its sheath. "Thou hast turned Thyself from the glow of Thine anger" gives the same idea under another metaphor. The word turn has a singular fascination for this psalmist. He uses it five times (vv. 1, 3, 4, 6--_lit._, wilt Thou not turn, quicken us?--and 8). God's turning from His anger is the reason for Israel's returning from captivity.

The abruptness of the transition from joyous thanksgiving to the sad minor of lamentation and supplication is striking, but most natural, if the psalmist was one of the band of returning exiles, surrounded by the ruins of a happier past, and appalled by the magnitude of the work before them, the slenderness of their resources, and the fierce hostility of their neighbours. The prayer of ver. 4, "Turn us," is best taken as using the word in the same sense as in ver. 1, where God is said to have "turned" the captivity of Jacob. What was there regarded as accomplished is here conceived of as still to be done. That is, the restoration was incomplete, as we know that it was, both in regard to the bulk of the nation, who still remained in exile, and in regard to the depressed condition of the small part of it which had gone back to Palestine. In like manner the petitions of ver. 5 look back to ver. 3, and pray that the anger which there had been spoken of as passed may indeed utterly cease. The partial restoration of the people implied, in the psalmist's view, a diminution rather than a cessation of God's punitive wrath, and he beseeches Him to complete that which He had begun.